I came across a brief blog post titled “Social Networking - Do you do it?“.  While the context of the question in that post was more along the lines of “Do you use social networking to promote your products and servers, and drive more traffic towards your site?“, it got me thinking.  And, as usual, in a somewhat different direction.

If we are to ask “Social Networking - Do you do do it?” to a large Internet crowd, what sort of responses would we get?  I guess, the majority will be somewhere in between “No” and “What’s social networking?“.  I think that the majority of people on the Web have no idea of what social networking is, where to find it, and if they are using it already or if they should use it at all.  And I also think that the majority of Web population do use social networking, either for their personal or business purposes.

Examples from the top of my head include LiveJournal.com - the most popular blogging platform in Russia, Flickr - one of the most popular image sharing services, YouTube - the most popular video sharing service, Odnoklassniki.ru - the most popular (in Russia) social network for people to find and communicate with their class mates, and a few other, similar services.  A huge chunk of their userbase have no idea that these services are a part of social networking. “Oh, no, I don’t do no social networking.  I use this web site to communicate with some of my friends and share blah blah blah“.

And I’m not sure if we need to push the term “social networking” any further.  We are humans.  That what humans do - social networks.  Give us a communication tool and we’ll start networking with it.  Then, instead of asking us if we use the tool for social networks, just ask us how we use it.  Yeah.

Being a great of kung fu movies, I aboslutely had to see “Kung Fu Panda“.  Even though it is an animation, it still features Jackie Chan and lots of kung fu training and fights.  I don’t know what it is about kung fu movies that drags me in and occupies my attention, but it’s always the same.  And “Kung Fu Panda” was no exception.

And it wasn’t a disappointment.  Great animation, good humor, and the best of kung fu - it’s all there.  The last dumpling fight is up there with the rest of the best kung fu fights.  And an extra point for choosing the animals for characters and kung fu styles.  Lots of fun.

Overall, a 7 out of 10.  Recommended for any fans of animation, Jack Black, or kung fu movies.

The Next Web Boris has a thought provoking blog post titled “Achieving (and living with) Perfect Knowledge“.

One day, we will have Perfect Knowledge. Although we won’t know everything there is to know, our knowledge of the world will approach a perfect state. It will be ‘lacking nothing essential to the whole’

Recommended reading.

A couple of weeks ago my beloved Sony Ericsson P910 died.  It got dropped one too many times.  A rather large semi-lequid patch appeared in its left bottom corner and touch screen stopped working.  Since the keyboard died a long time ago, I was left with no way to input or navigate the phone.  Being an exceptionally smart individual I decided that a reboot might cure this, and, obviously, that left me at the “Enter your PIN” prompt with no hope what so ever.

Next morning I rushed to the mobile shop.  The first two on my way were closed, since that was too early in the morning, but gladly I remembered that there is a Germanos branch in Debenhams, which opens pretty early.  Like 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning.  And indeed it was open.

Which phone should I get?  Every time I have this question, no matter how much time I spend online reading reviews and calculating ratings.  Shopping for a new phone is one of those experiences where “in hand” is way better than “online”.

I’ve been waiting for some Google Android based phones to pop up, but it is too early in the year.  And anything else that I liked the picture of on the Internet was running Windows Mobile which I don’t feel like trying yet.  So, there I was, early morning in the mobile phone shop.

Gladly, we don’t have a lot of choice when it comes to mobile phones.  It’s not like in Europe or on the Internet.  There are just a few brands with just a few models.  And if you are to consider major differences between them, and pick the one accoding to your likings, you probably won’t find more than three models to choose from.  And this time it was no exception.

After just three minutes in the shop, I ended up with a couple of Sony Ericsson models and an HTC thing.  The HTC one was really neat.  It had nice rubber feel to it, it was the right size, and it had the full QWERTY keyboard sliding out of phone’s side.  Really nice design.  But it was a Windows Mobile thing, so, unfortunately, I had to say “No”.  Maybe next time though.  And out of the two Sony Ericsson models that I picked, only one had an extra memory extension slot.  So the choice was obvious.

Sony Ericsson G900

Things that I love about this phone:

• All sorts of networking options from BlueTooth to WiFi.
• Excellent computer connectivity.  Plug in a simple USB cable, and I can move files in and out.  Even using my Fedora Linux laptop.  No magic, no drivers, no software, nothing.  Beautiful.
• Remote synchronization of contacts, calendars, notes, and more.  More on that in a moment.
• 5 megapixel camera.  Photo and video.  Not something to substitute serious equipment, but really handy.  Plus has some cool effects like black and white, sepia, etc.
• Symbian UIQ operating system, which gives me access to a wide range of software, both Symbian-specific and that of the Java  platform.
• Support for video calls.  I just realized that these work even here in Cyprus.  Even though they are somewhat more expensive.
• Size and weight.  Not too small, and very light.

Things that I don’t like about this phone:

• A bit slow.  Especially starting up.
• Navigation is weird at times.  This might be because I used different types of phones before.  Or maybe it’s just weird.
• Battery life could have been better.  Although I’ve now learned to disable wireless networking when I don’t need it.

Once I bought the phone, my next concern was the resore of my contacts and schedules.  As you can imagine, my old phone died before I could do a proper backup, so I was a bit worried there.

I remember having done quite a few backups of my contacts, sending them to my Gmail account.  A few searches showed that the last backup was done more than two years ago.  Oh, well.  Better than nothing.  But will the import work OK?  Will the pictures and extra notes transfer?  I never had to try it.

Good friends suggested a couple of web services to try.  The first one was Mobical.  Really good one.  I registered, entered my phone number, received an SMS with some settings, approved it, and that was it.  I had an editor in my browser, which I could conveniently use to modify contacts, schedules, notes, bookmarks, and what not.  Then, a simple button push on my mobile synchronized what I saw in my browser to what I saw in my mobile.  Beautiful!  I played quite a bit with it.  Import feature took my latest backup just fine and the rest I could easily complete without using the freaky mobile keyboard.

The only thing that I wish was better - Google integration.  Most of my contacts are in Gmail, and I use Google Calendar too much to have another software for this purpose.  Gladly, there is GooSync.  Solves the problem of Google integration.  Takes all the contacts and calendars and does two way synchronization between the phone and Google services.  Sweet!

In under a day I was all set and packed with contacts, tools, and exploring new features.  That was probably the shortest and most pleasant phone upgrade ever.

P.S.:  If you want to see some of the pictures and videos taken with this phone, check out Sony Ericsson G900 tag in my Flickr photostream.

P.P.S.: Videos are not yet uploaded, but they are coming soon (today, tomorrow).

Yesterday I went to see “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor“.  I thought that the previous two movies (”The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns“) were entertaining, so I was looking forward to this one.  However, there were quite a few reviews that mentioned that this sequel sucked.  That got me into doubts whether I should see it at all or not, but finally I decided to go.

The flick wasn’t bad at all.  It was somewhat crowded with characters, and the plot was sort of weak, but the important stuff was still there - mummy, Brendan Fraser, and tonnes of special effects.  Shooting, fighting, car chases, airplanes, zombie battles, exposions - these were all in excess.

But the critics were somewhat right.  This wasn’t as good the previous mummy movies.  First of all, the mummy itself wasn’t strong or scary.  In the previous films, the Egyptian mummy was so powerful that it was making warriors out of sand dunes, commanding millions of flash eating beatles, and moving stormy clouds in formations.  A hero had to fight that mummy, because it was too devastating before it was even getting into its full powers.  In this film though, the mummy was more like a pissed off guy getting his life back.  Whoever gets on his way was getting his butt kicked.  There was some potential for evil afterwords, but it’s just not the same.  Secondly,  Rachel Weisz wasn’t in this movie, and she couldn’t have been substitute by anyone.  Not in a million years.  Thirdly, there was something obviously dogdy about the storyline itself.  It felt like the good guys has become the bad guys, and the bad guys has become the good guys.  And since it wasn’t going very well on its own, some really bad dialogues and mottos were added to the mix.  And that didn’t mix that well.

Overall, I’d give it a 6 out of 10.  Not a bad entertainment flick if you are to see it in the movies, but don’t be expecting much out of it, and I doubt that it’s worth a DVD purchase.

P.S.: There is no way Brandon Fraser could win a fight against Jet Li.  No way!

For the last few days, the biggest thing in the technical news is Google Chrome browser (check the comics book, introducing the browser, download beta).  Sure, we had our share of browser wars, and we still do, but this is something completely different.  Most of today’s browsers started back in the days when the Web was totally different.  Since then, some browsers changed more than others.  Some new ones appeared.  But there was no a big break through.  It was mostly an evolutionary approach.

I’m glad to see these big news from Google, that they decided to create a new browser from scratch.  They built it with solutions to many of the today’s problems.  They’ve put some flexbility for the future.  And it seems like they’ve thought a lot about it.

I absolutely support their choice of open source in this matter.  Nobody, not even Google can build a browser that will satisfy everyone and everything, and then keep developing and maintaining it.  That’s not possible with the current state of the Web affairs.  The only way to pull it off is to open source it, so that the Web itself could help them with this mega task.  Also, it’s nice to see that they don’t want to reinvent the wheel either - taking both WebKit (open source web rendering engine) and V8 (open source JavaScript implementation) is smart decision.

It’s nice to see some real competition in the browser world.  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has changed a lot in the last few years, and the biggest reason for those changes was Mozilla’s Firefox.  Firefox changed a lot too, but it sure could use a push from another open source product.  Google’s Chrome could be exactly that product.

Also, for once it would be nice to see a browser built by someone who knows the Web, and not how to build software.  Yes, browser is a software, but it’s not on its own.  You need to know more and have access to a lot more data to build a good browser.  In particular, what, who, and how uses the Web.  Neither Microsoft, nor Mozilla, nor Opera Software have these information.  Or at least not on the scale that Google has.

And, of course, there always will be downsides to any good initiative.  In the case with Google Chrome, my biggest concern is the situation with themes and extensions.  Firefox has an excellent community in this regard.  This community has built all possible and impossible thems and extensions for practically anyone anywhere.  And it still continues to do so.  Google Chrome starts from scratch, so there won’t be anything for some time.  And since the whole browser thing is new, it’ll need to start with a new set of developers, testers, users, and so on.  And so it will take them some time build that all up.

As with anything, there are a billion of other ways to look at Google Chrome, the way the Web is going, the way Google is going, the way software development in general and IT as a whole is going.  But I’ll leave that up to you.  Here are, however, a few links to get you started.

• Slashdot : Google Chrome, the Google Browser
• Slashdot : Mozilla’s Thoughts on Google’s Chrome
• Linux Weekly News : The Google Chrome comic book
• PCWorld : Official Google Chrome Screenshots
• Google Blogs Search results for “Google Chrome“

Sometimes, it feels like marketing is the hype of the millenium.  Or a decade at least.  There are marketeers, marketing divisions, online marketing, marketing this and marketing that.  But what the heck is this marketing thing after all?  Can we have it in simple terms?

Well, either I don’t understand a lot (and I don’t claim that I do), or I haven’t met with the right marketing people, or both, or something else, but what I am thinking is that marketing on its own is nothing.  Nada.  Not at all.

Before you eat me and my old shoes, let me explain.  Marketing is that thing that supposedely helps the product (or service for that matter) reach the customer.  Or the other way around.  And then maybe even convince the customer that he is actually satisfied by what he got.  Or maybe I am way off already.

Anyway.  To do that (connect the customer with the product or service), marketing people need to know three things.  First is the product or service - the destination.  Second is the customer - the source.  And third is, well, marketing - the path or possible pathes between the two.  Am I even remotely right ono this?  If I am, then let me tell you something - this doesn’t work.  How about that, eh?

Marketing on its own doesn’t work for exactly the same reasons that MIS doesn’t work.  MIS is this gray area between Information Technology and Business Administration.  It’s supposed to help them communicate with each other.  But because MIS never (or almost never, or extremely rarely) truly understands both the business side and the technical side, it only makes things worse.  Instead of having two languages - one very technical with lots of terminology and precise definitions, and another one business - with lots of money and people-related processes - the company now has to speak three languages, with the third one being a weird dialect combined and distored from the other two.

The product and the customer are like two magnets.  When connecting them, they will either be of opposite polarity and will hurry towards each other and live happily ever after, or they will resist each other as much as they can.  Is it possible to bring two magnets of the same polarity to each other?  Yes.  If the magnets are small and you hands are strong, you can pull them together.  That’s marketing for you.  Let it go and both magnets would be much happier.  And if they were of the different polarity?  Guess what?  You don’t need much force to put them together.

Back from the abstract world.  I think marketing makes sense on the secondary level.  That is, everyone should have a bit of marketing knowledge - from sysadmins and programmers to accountants and managers.  But marketing shouldn’t stand on its own.  In fact, if marketing is taught to everyone, then it can be that common language for everyone to help to understand each other.  The one that MIS so miserably failed to be.

Those who are at the top, they want to grow, increase, make more and better.  Those are down below, actually doing things, really know how to make things better or faster.  The problem is that they can’t communicate with each other usually.  So what they need is a little help in this area.  Not someone else who neither understands what is possible or not or how big or fast things can go.

That’s about it, minus a few disclaimers.

Disclaimer #1: all my knowledge of marketing came from working at or talking with people who are working at small or medium companies, the majority of which deal with information and technology.

Disclaimer #2: I was thrown off balance by a some marketing types recently.

Disclaimer #3: I had a few pints of a lovely Guiness draught before I typed this whole post in.

I have a rather large MP3 collection.  The directories and files are named correctly more or less, but ID3 tags used to be a mess until very recently.  Two applications helped me to bring some order in that mess.

EasyTag, a GUI application, that helped me to fix lots of broken and add lots of missing comments to my MP3 files.  The smart thing about this program is that it can figure out a lot of data from the names of the files and directories, and that it can grab and replicate partial data from within the albums.

The second program that I wanted to mention, I just found out about today (thanks to Michael Stepanov’s delicious bookmarks).  It’s called tag2utf.  It’s a little Python script that converts the encoding of ID3 tags from koi8 or cp1251 (two most widely used Russian encodings) to utf8.  It’s very easy to install (the only requirement my system needed was python-eye3d library, which exists in Fedora repository) and use.  Just run it from the command line with no parameters and it will recursively look in the current directory for any files that have ID3 tags in non-utf8 encoding.  It will then give you a choice of two encodings to select from (koi8 or cp1251), a “skip” option, and a “manual” option.  All you will have to do is take a quick look at the files, and chose to either convert them from one of the two options, skip them or convert manually one by one.  You will have to make this choice for every directory with non-utf8 files.  Optionally, you can specify on the command line which directories to scan.  In case you need to convert from some other non-Russian encoding to utf8, the script is trivial to modify.

Both tools are excellent pieces of software.  It took me practically no time at all to fix my mp3 collection.  Now I can search it better, and all files display nicely in any mp3 player.  Brilliant stuff!

Quintura blog has this nice post with some statistics of Russian online shoppers - how often they buy, what they buy, and how they pay.  As any other bit of statistics, it’s rather interesting.  However, I think there is more to it than the article covers.  Here are my random thoughts in a bullet list format.

• “85% of Russian Internet users shop online”.  It would be extremely interesting to see at least some approximation of country population to its Internet users.  According to Wikipedia, Russian population is about 142,000,000 people.  How many of these are online?  According to some resources, such as, for example, Public Opinion Foundation Database, it’s somewhere between 18% and 25%.  And then again, it’s depends a lot on where you are looking at.  Moscow and surrounding areas have a much higher Intenret penetration than Central and Eastern Russia.  Moscow can have as much as 56% of its population online, while less than 20% of the Urals and the Siberia population are connected.
• “The Russian e-commerce market has doubled to $3.2 billion in 2007″. Sounds huge, doesn’t it.  But let’s see. I’ll pick 28,000,000 people or 25% of connected population as per Public Opinion Foundation Database for the calculations.  85% of these are shopping online.  That’s about 23,800,000 people.  $3.2 billion market devided equally between all those people comes down to $135.  So, the market is huge, rather because there are so many people around, as opposed to how much those people buy. If you need more numbers to explain you the situation, have a look at the state of the Russian economy at Wikipedia.
• “However, it’s yet to become a habit because only 16% of users shop online once a month”. Sounds like the other 84% shop less than once a month.  Why?  Maybe because it isn’t so easy to find a few people to batch into a single order.  Or maybe they just don’t have time to, between the two jobs or something.
• “Most of the shoppers or 70% paid for online goods in cash upon delivery while only 12% of responders used bank cards in online transactions and another 10% used online payment systems”.  Internationally recognized credit cards, like Visa or MasterCard, are probably either expensive to have or difficult to get or both.  Personally, I don’t have much experience in this area, but I’ve heard a few of my Russian friends complaining about the state of the banking system in the country.  Also, there is another thing to remember - language.  I don’t have any numbers at hand, but I’d say that people who can at least read and understand at least one foreign language are a minority in Russia.  With no credit card and foreign language knowledge, most of the purchasing activity would stay within the country.
• “The most popular shopping items included books (51% of responders), computers (43%), home appliances (42%), software (31%), movies (26%), beauty products (25%), and music (23%)”.  It looks like the majority of Russian online shoppers are rather young, tech-savvy people.
• All of the above make it sound like a lot of marketing opportunities - large number of people, who are roughly in the same age group, with somewhat poor geographic distribution and limited access to credit cards… And with that, it’s interesting to see at the advertising channels.  TV, radio, Internet itself.  And then, which Russian sites with some sort of ad campaigns are the most visited?

Feel free to throw in your thoughts and more numbers via comments.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at “Top Recommendations” area of my Google Reader today and found … my own blog over there.

Yes, I know that these recommendations are based on the feeds that I read.  But still!  Is it the time to celebrate the recommendations technology, which recommended me to me over a gadzillion of other blogs?  Or maybe this is a day of Ultimate Technological Silliness, when Google, a search company that forgets nothing, somehow arrived to the conclusion that I might not be reading my own blog?  These questions remind me of a “half-empty or half-full glass of water“.  I guess a lot depends on the personal perspective…